With Videos, McConnell Finds More Bloopers Than Hits

An ad for Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky showed a team in blue and white: Duke, not the University of Kentucky.

By David S. Joachim

March 26, 2014

WASHINGTON — Senator Mitch McConnell’s re-election team is getting very good at making campaign videos that go viral — but for all the wrong reasons.

On Tuesday, the campaign for Mr. McConnell, the Kentucky Republican, released what at first seemed to be a standard spot featuring rapid-fire images of American flags, guns, trains, farmers, horses galloping and, for an eye blink, footage of a college basketball team in white and blue uniforms reveling in victory.

But, oops, it was not the University of Kentucky Wildcats. It was Duke.

Mr. McConnell’s opponent, Alison Lundergan Grimes, quickly seized on the error. “KY, as your next senator, I promise to never glorify a Duke championship in a campaign ad,” she said in one Twitter post. “Turns out @Team_Mitch has been in DC for so long he can’t tell the difference between UK & Duke basketball,” said another.

Scrambling, the campaign removed the ad (not fast enough) and replaced the Duke footage with a clip of a Kentucky player. But, oops again, that version prompted the University of Kentucky to demand that the image be taken down because the McConnell campaign did not have permission to use it.

The race in Kentucky is among the most closely watched in the country, with Mr. McConnell, the Republican leader in the Senate, locked in a tight race with Ms. Grimes, a Democrat and Kentucky’s secretary of state.

It was not the first time that the McConnell campaign was mocked online. Also this month, a video of Mr. McConnell smiling wordlessly for two and a half minutes — ostensibly for friendly “super PACs” to use in ads — was widely lampooned as Internet users made their own versions of Mr. McConnell looking awkward.

That time, Mr. McConnell’s campaign aides embraced the joke and even made a mash-up of the viral videos in an effort to display a sense of humor. This time, they are probably not laughing.

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page A21 of the New York edition with the headline: With Videos, McConnell Finds More Bloopers Than Hits. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe